Discussion
I am a movie buff, brought up in a family of musicians and theatre people.
Do any of you remember the part in Jurassic Park where the T Rex bursts through the fence and Goldblum reluctantly murmers, "Boy, I hate being right all the time!"
That is how I feel right now; after two hours of coming home to the news of yet ANOTHER rail disaster, ANOTHER vehicle on the line struck by an express train, itself once again derailed and utterly smashed to pieces.
As of five minutes before I wrote this, 8 deaths, 11 critically injured, 150 "walking wounded", (I'm sorry, re we at war?),no recognisable sign of the vehicle occupants.
I know! the driver fell asleep at the wheel!! I mean he/she must have. What other explanation could there be?
Wait a minute, the driver might have been speeding, or just driving carelessly? Christ, I hope he had insurance!! And his road tax was valid!
Right: another report is coming through, the car was on an unmanned level crossing. WHAT!!!!????
The mainline express travelling at 104MPH has struck a vehicle on an unmanned level crossing. There is a report that the driver deliberately drove on to the crossing to commit suicide.
GET YOUR HEAD ROUND THIS!!
It is the year 2004 and our railway system has level crossings that are over 100 years old with express trains going through them at 104 mph!!
This is quite clearly Gary Hart's fault, he didn't write to his MP and complain after his experience.
To any of you who were accident investigators, coppers on the scene, forensic scientists or any other faintly interested party, don't dare say to me, "Ah, but this was different, this was a genuine accident, it couldn't be helped!"
And to all you blood sucking, corporately motivated bastards who take the quarterly or annual returns on their shares from the railways, this is what happens when you put profit before safety, business before people, returns before investment.
I'm going to sleep on this to try and dissipate some anger, then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do about it.
Do any of you remember the part in Jurassic Park where the T Rex bursts through the fence and Goldblum reluctantly murmers, "Boy, I hate being right all the time!"
That is how I feel right now; after two hours of coming home to the news of yet ANOTHER rail disaster, ANOTHER vehicle on the line struck by an express train, itself once again derailed and utterly smashed to pieces.
As of five minutes before I wrote this, 8 deaths, 11 critically injured, 150 "walking wounded", (I'm sorry, re we at war?),no recognisable sign of the vehicle occupants.
I know! the driver fell asleep at the wheel!! I mean he/she must have. What other explanation could there be?
Wait a minute, the driver might have been speeding, or just driving carelessly? Christ, I hope he had insurance!! And his road tax was valid!
Right: another report is coming through, the car was on an unmanned level crossing. WHAT!!!!????
The mainline express travelling at 104MPH has struck a vehicle on an unmanned level crossing. There is a report that the driver deliberately drove on to the crossing to commit suicide.
GET YOUR HEAD ROUND THIS!!
It is the year 2004 and our railway system has level crossings that are over 100 years old with express trains going through them at 104 mph!!
This is quite clearly Gary Hart's fault, he didn't write to his MP and complain after his experience.
To any of you who were accident investigators, coppers on the scene, forensic scientists or any other faintly interested party, don't dare say to me, "Ah, but this was different, this was a genuine accident, it couldn't be helped!"
And to all you blood sucking, corporately motivated bastards who take the quarterly or annual returns on their shares from the railways, this is what happens when you put profit before safety, business before people, returns before investment.
I'm going to sleep on this to try and dissipate some anger, then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do about it.
100 year old level crossings? Are they steam operated or something? What are you on about? If this is as the reports suggest and the car occupant comitted suicide by driving onto the tracks, what could possibly have been done to stop it, short of removing every single level crossing?
As undoubtedly tragic as this incident would appear, it can hardly be blamed on the rail industry or the Government if someone has deliberately gone out and parked themselves in front of a train.
I really can't see what the Gary Hart case has to do with anything in this incident either.
As undoubtedly tragic as this incident would appear, it can hardly be blamed on the rail industry or the Government if someone has deliberately gone out and parked themselves in front of a train.
I really can't see what the Gary Hart case has to do with anything in this incident either.
hornet said:
100 year old level crossings? Are they steam operated or something? What are you on about? If this is as the reports suggest and the car occupant comitted suicide by driving onto the tracks, what could possibly have been done to stop it, short of removing every single level crossing?
As undoubtedly tragic as this incident would appear, it can hardly be blamed on the rail industry or the Government if someone has deliberately gone out and parked themselves in front of a train.
I really can't see what the Gary Hart case has to do with anything in this incident either.
Well, let's see now.
They were both driving a vehicle.
They both managed to get their vehicles for whatever reason on to a mainline express track.
On both occasions this caused a monstrously violent collision, both rightly classed as rail disasters.
Gary Hart was prosecuted for causing the rail disaster by falling asleep, although a great many people believe it was mechanical failure.
Either way, it happened because Gary Hart's vehicle WAS ABLE to get on the line.
The accident tonight happened because the vehicle WAS ABLE to get on the line.
Yes the crossing IS 100 YEARS OLD!!! Huge sections and stations and buildings and parts of the railway are 100 years old and older.
The owners and shareholders of the railways take profits from them when they are criminally underfunded to the point where people are being KILLED!
There were no cars 100 years ago so it was not a problem then; by God it is now!!
We cannot afford to allow vehicles access under ANY circumstances to the rail network system when there are trains weighing hundreds of tons travelling at 100 mph plus filled with people; it's simple physics!
Why does this not happen in France or Germany?
Is my writing joined up enough for you, or do you want me to resort to single syllables?
IOLAIRE said:
As of five minutes before I wrote this, 8 deaths, Right: another report is coming through, the car was on an unmanned level crossing.
IOLAIRE
Do you make things up as you go along ?
Only six people were killed.
The crossing was a modern automatic crossing.
Please don't make things up for your own personal glory.
All this information has been known for sometime.
IOLAIRE said:
I'm going to sleep on this to try and dissipate some anger, then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do about it.
What you need to do is wait,
GET THE FACTS, and post something worth mentioning rather than the emotive bollox we have come to expect from you. No post on here has ever made me as angry as yours. You clutch a straws immediately following a terrible accident just to try and prove your own pathetic point.
Steve
What comes to my mind is the continued use of half barrier crossings, especially on lines with trains at this speed, it's hardly a local branch line, is it?
Half barrier crossings have been the subject of critisism for years, and the site of many such accidents. IMO They should be outlawed.
From what I can gather, it's only a small lane, surely it could be excavated to go under the track? A small price to pay for rail safety I would think.
Half barrier crossings have been the subject of critisism for years, and the site of many such accidents. IMO They should be outlawed.
From what I can gather, it's only a small lane, surely it could be excavated to go under the track? A small price to pay for rail safety I would think.
And I`ve just realised the title of your thread.
FYI here is the OED definition of Genocide: • noun. the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.
How does this relate to a train crash involving six fatalities (at time of posting).
Iolaire, please seek professional help.
Steve
FYI here is the OED definition of Genocide: • noun. the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.
How does this relate to a train crash involving six fatalities (at time of posting).
Iolaire, please seek professional help.
Steve
ledfoot said:
As of five minutes before I wrote this, 8 deaths, Right: another report is coming through, the car was on an unmanned level crossing.
IOLAIRE
Do you make things up as you go along ?
Only six people were killed.
The crossing was a modern automatic crossing.
Please don't make things up for your own personal glory.
All this information has been known for sometime.
Ledfoot,
I'm so sorry, so it was "only six people", well I'm sure the victims families will be truly relieved to hear that, this makes it so much better!
The crossing was unmanned; is it "modern" because it has new bulbs in it or maybe a fresh coat of paint.
Christ Almighty, listen to yourself!
Do you honestly think I'm sitting here at 1-30 in the morning on this terminal because I seek "personal glory"?
You haven't a bloody clue!!
People are being killed!!: do you think I get some sort of morbid satisfaction out of this because I was right?
Since privatisation we are world leaders in rail disasters, what a wonderful legacy that is, what a proud boast for our country.
The thing that sickens me most is the absolute, total refusal to accept responsibility for the collective criminal negligence and the disastrous mess that is our railways.
This time it's started already, a pathetic bleet in the darkness; "There's nothing you can do about it if someone wants to commit suicide by driving onto a track."
What are you going to say if they discover it wasn't suicide?
Waken up! Open your eyes and your mind and do something that will make a difference.
towman said:
And I`ve just realised the title of your thread.
FYI here is the OED definition of Genocide: • noun. the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.
How does this relate to a train crash involving six fatalities (at time of posting).
Iolaire, please seek professional help.
Steve
Exactly Steve,
the apathy of the British Government and the road and rail authorities is responsible for the deaths of dozens of people in the rail accidents we have had over the past few years.
I don't stoop to personal insults so all I will say for your own benefit is that perhaps a little "professional help" in a local vocational English class will elevate your understanding of simple statements.
IOLAIRE said:
I don't stoop to personal insults .......
No need to stoop as you already appear to be on a lower level.
Here are the statements I understand:
There has been a train crash.
People have died.
The reasons for this crash have yet to be publicised.
You claim that the government (and others) are deliberately attempting to kill a large number of the British population.
Guess which statement I have a problem with.
FYI here is a list of activities where the people involved have died:
Driving cars
Train travel
Aircraft travel
Ferry travel
DIY
Climbing ladders
Walking
Getting Dressed
Sleeping
etc,etc,etc,etc. to the point where I could say
ANYTHING! All down to the government, or just a fact of life (and death)?
Steve
towman said:
I don't stoop to personal insults .......
No need to stoop as you already appear to be on a lower level.
Here are the statements I understand:
There has been a train crash.
People have died.
The reasons for this crash have yet to be publicised.
You claim that the government (and others) are deliberately attempting to kill a large number of the British population.
Guess which statement I have a problem with.
FYI here is a list of activities where the people involved have died:
Driving cars
Train travel
Aircraft travel
Ferry travel
DIY
Climbing ladders
Walking
Getting Dressed
Sleeping
etc,etc,etc,etc. to the point where I could say
All down to the government, or just a fact of life (and death)?
Steve
Goodnight Steve,
Sweet dreams, you're already halfway there.
(Edit: when I started typing this there was only the initial post on the thread...)
I presume your comments about falling asleep and Gary Hart are made sarcastically
This incident does have some interesting similarities to the Gary Hart incident. One is the unexpected scale of the destruction. A train hitting a road vehicle doesn't usually suffer so much damage. (Indeed, in the Gary Hart incident the train remained essentially undamaged until it hit another train coming the other way.)
The other is that the primary cause of the accident was a failure of the road system. In Gary Hart's case the crash barrier was inadequate to contain an out-of-control road vehicle. In this case the cause is obviously the stupidity of the car driver. It is debatable whether he(?) was unbelievably selfish and stupid (if the suicide report is true) or just staggeringly incompetent (how does anyone manage to "get stuck" on a level crossing unless you turn through 90 degrees and get your wheels jammed down the side of the rails? Even if you have the incredible bad luck to run out of petrol at the precise point to leave you stopped on the crossing you can still drive off on the starter.).
If it's a spectacular suicide I don't know what can be done to guard against the rare people who are so unbalanced as to go to such lengths. If it's incompetence it should be possible to discover what it is that causes people to "get stuck" on level crossings and educate people not to do it.
Those who put profits before safety with level crossings are those who built the railways in the first place - in an age of lower speeds and less traffic. Many level crossings have been replaced by bridges, and still are being on a piecemeal basis, but there are still several thousand of them, mostly unmanned, and the fact that disasters such as this are rare and exceptional events - in terms of the number of times any train passes any level crossing between disasters, one-in-millions events - makes it entirely understandable that the staggering cost and disruption (line closures while work is carried out) involved in replacing them all with bridges has not been thought worthwhile.
The level crossing in question is the one between the pub and Ufton Bridge on this map: http://tinyurl.com/5nb2h . This is a pretty minor road by the looks of it - the "main" road to Ufton Nervet is the next turning off the A4 to the north-east, which crosses the railway by a bridge - and would be unlikely to be anyone's early choice for replacement with a bridge.
It is an automatic half-barrier crossing. These were imported from France because the French found them to actually be safer than fully-gated crossings.
This document makes interesting reading:
www.hse.gov.uk/railways/annualreport0304/levelcrossing.pdf
It seems that even in a peak year there were only 18 deaths for nearly 8000 level crossings and many millions of instances of trains passing level crossings without incident - including one suicide by parking on the crossing, which didn't cause a disaster (mail train, but at that location likely to be doing close to the line speed of 90mph). Eliminating level crossings en masse would cost a staggering amount of money, and for very little benefit compared to the number of deaths that could be prevented by spending money elsewhere - extending crash barriers on overbridges, eliminating MRSA, remodelling Handy Cross, all sorts of possibilities.
>> Edited by Pigeon on Sunday 7th November 02:30
I presume your comments about falling asleep and Gary Hart are made sarcastically
This incident does have some interesting similarities to the Gary Hart incident. One is the unexpected scale of the destruction. A train hitting a road vehicle doesn't usually suffer so much damage. (Indeed, in the Gary Hart incident the train remained essentially undamaged until it hit another train coming the other way.)
The other is that the primary cause of the accident was a failure of the road system. In Gary Hart's case the crash barrier was inadequate to contain an out-of-control road vehicle. In this case the cause is obviously the stupidity of the car driver. It is debatable whether he(?) was unbelievably selfish and stupid (if the suicide report is true) or just staggeringly incompetent (how does anyone manage to "get stuck" on a level crossing unless you turn through 90 degrees and get your wheels jammed down the side of the rails? Even if you have the incredible bad luck to run out of petrol at the precise point to leave you stopped on the crossing you can still drive off on the starter.).
If it's a spectacular suicide I don't know what can be done to guard against the rare people who are so unbalanced as to go to such lengths. If it's incompetence it should be possible to discover what it is that causes people to "get stuck" on level crossings and educate people not to do it.
Those who put profits before safety with level crossings are those who built the railways in the first place - in an age of lower speeds and less traffic. Many level crossings have been replaced by bridges, and still are being on a piecemeal basis, but there are still several thousand of them, mostly unmanned, and the fact that disasters such as this are rare and exceptional events - in terms of the number of times any train passes any level crossing between disasters, one-in-millions events - makes it entirely understandable that the staggering cost and disruption (line closures while work is carried out) involved in replacing them all with bridges has not been thought worthwhile.
The level crossing in question is the one between the pub and Ufton Bridge on this map: http://tinyurl.com/5nb2h . This is a pretty minor road by the looks of it - the "main" road to Ufton Nervet is the next turning off the A4 to the north-east, which crosses the railway by a bridge - and would be unlikely to be anyone's early choice for replacement with a bridge.
It is an automatic half-barrier crossing. These were imported from France because the French found them to actually be safer than fully-gated crossings.
This document makes interesting reading:
www.hse.gov.uk/railways/annualreport0304/levelcrossing.pdf
It seems that even in a peak year there were only 18 deaths for nearly 8000 level crossings and many millions of instances of trains passing level crossings without incident - including one suicide by parking on the crossing, which didn't cause a disaster (mail train, but at that location likely to be doing close to the line speed of 90mph). Eliminating level crossings en masse would cost a staggering amount of money, and for very little benefit compared to the number of deaths that could be prevented by spending money elsewhere - extending crash barriers on overbridges, eliminating MRSA, remodelling Handy Cross, all sorts of possibilities.
>> Edited by Pigeon on Sunday 7th November 02:30
Trying to be objective here whilst I think Iolaire is being a bit premature with diving in at this stage I have to say in support that there are a large number of places where vehicles can access the main line tracks.
I'm not talking diving off roads near bridges. Despite the allegations on the Gary Hart thread that nothing has been done at the site in question I can recall many places where not long after Great Heck there were short term temporary works replaced later by proper constructions to prevent vehicles driving off the roads near bridges.
I'm not talking about level crossings either, plenty of cases where people looking for a turning in the dark have manoeuvred onto the lines perhaps due to dim sight or dim wittedness.
No I'm talking about there are many cases where a turning down the wrong country track (as in OS white road) can lead the driver suddenly finding themselves alongside a main line. Next time any of you catch a train take a note of how many times you see a farm or other track running alongside the line.
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=53.3692&lon=-1.3702&scale=25000&icon=x is just one example.
At the top of the map you see opencast workings and near that a couple of tracks, plus there are some unmarked ones not shown on the map. You could drive directly onto the line, haven't been down there for years but given what I see elsewhere no reason to suspect anything will have changed. If it has, well done somebody!
This seems at odds with a system which is deliberately designed to operate at speeds where the vehicle cannot be stopped in he distance the driver can see to be clear. Of course to adopt this rule would kill the railways and be very inconvenient to a large piece of society, not least the Govt.
The point is though, as others have suggested that it is almost impossible to eliminate risk in anything we do, the difficult part is to detemine the level of risk that we as a society are willing to accept. I use the word accept both in the sense of acceptable risk and cost.
To give an extreme and off topic (sorry!) example. We as a nation, as do the USA, have patrolling the seas submarines armed with live nuclear missiles for use as deterrent.
There has to be a system which prevents accidental launch and delivery of these missiles without the express command of the relevant authority.
That system has to be accurate such that it prevents accidental launch in....
1:1000 years?
1:10,000 years?
1:100,000 years?
What would you find acceptable, because you'll not get it to zero! (The actual figure is classified btw)
To get back to car / train interface, it's quite clear that it is possible to operate cars and light railways in close proximity in shared space viz tramway systems. However the risks are obvious so do people take more care? Also speeds are lower of course.
To suggest that all level crossings should be replaced by over/under passes because of a few possible idiots is over the top in my opinion. Take a look at the map link provided by pigeon above, there are two crossings on that map alone, the one where the incident under discussion occurred and another on a short road up to the Kennet & Avon canal.
Suppose we did replace all crossings though, what will we not spend money on as a result of that expenditure? Or should we raise taxes further? Where does it all stop? When there are so many restrictions that nobody gets out of bed anymore?
Last year I can find records for there were 13 people killed at work due to them walking into and striking a stationary object. FFS!
Some sort of balance is needed.
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Sunday 7th November 11:25
I'm not talking diving off roads near bridges. Despite the allegations on the Gary Hart thread that nothing has been done at the site in question I can recall many places where not long after Great Heck there were short term temporary works replaced later by proper constructions to prevent vehicles driving off the roads near bridges.
I'm not talking about level crossings either, plenty of cases where people looking for a turning in the dark have manoeuvred onto the lines perhaps due to dim sight or dim wittedness.
No I'm talking about there are many cases where a turning down the wrong country track (as in OS white road) can lead the driver suddenly finding themselves alongside a main line. Next time any of you catch a train take a note of how many times you see a farm or other track running alongside the line.
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=53.3692&lon=-1.3702&scale=25000&icon=x is just one example.
At the top of the map you see opencast workings and near that a couple of tracks, plus there are some unmarked ones not shown on the map. You could drive directly onto the line, haven't been down there for years but given what I see elsewhere no reason to suspect anything will have changed. If it has, well done somebody!
This seems at odds with a system which is deliberately designed to operate at speeds where the vehicle cannot be stopped in he distance the driver can see to be clear. Of course to adopt this rule would kill the railways and be very inconvenient to a large piece of society, not least the Govt.
The point is though, as others have suggested that it is almost impossible to eliminate risk in anything we do, the difficult part is to detemine the level of risk that we as a society are willing to accept. I use the word accept both in the sense of acceptable risk and cost.
To give an extreme and off topic (sorry!) example. We as a nation, as do the USA, have patrolling the seas submarines armed with live nuclear missiles for use as deterrent.
There has to be a system which prevents accidental launch and delivery of these missiles without the express command of the relevant authority.
That system has to be accurate such that it prevents accidental launch in....
1:1000 years?
1:10,000 years?
1:100,000 years?
What would you find acceptable, because you'll not get it to zero! (The actual figure is classified btw)
To get back to car / train interface, it's quite clear that it is possible to operate cars and light railways in close proximity in shared space viz tramway systems. However the risks are obvious so do people take more care? Also speeds are lower of course.
To suggest that all level crossings should be replaced by over/under passes because of a few possible idiots is over the top in my opinion. Take a look at the map link provided by pigeon above, there are two crossings on that map alone, the one where the incident under discussion occurred and another on a short road up to the Kennet & Avon canal.
Suppose we did replace all crossings though, what will we not spend money on as a result of that expenditure? Or should we raise taxes further? Where does it all stop? When there are so many restrictions that nobody gets out of bed anymore?
Last year I can find records for there were 13 people killed at work due to them walking into and striking a stationary object. FFS!
Some sort of balance is needed.
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Sunday 7th November 11:25
OK I've now had a read through this thread, and it is clear that James is extremely agitated about this incident, and desperately wants to do something to minimise the risk of similar things happening in future.
Some posters have contributed very valid points about the practicalities of countering this sort of 'accident', as clearly we are never going to be able to make everything totally safe.
At this stage I simply don't know sufficient about the circumstances to know what to make of it, but I do feel we need to calm down somewhat before advocating any particlar response.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
Some posters have contributed very valid points about the practicalities of countering this sort of 'accident', as clearly we are never going to be able to make everything totally safe.
At this stage I simply don't know sufficient about the circumstances to know what to make of it, but I do feel we need to calm down somewhat before advocating any particlar response.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
Probably a bit simple this............why not build a bridge over the railway where there are now level crossings?. I know, the cost. Why not put safety barriers where they will prevent this sort of thing?......oh again, it's down to cost.
I know what you're saying iolaire, but calm down mate, you'll blow a gasket.
Phil
I know what you're saying iolaire, but calm down mate, you'll blow a gasket.
Phil
Is this a motorists' forum, or a branch of Brake?
The facts are these:
The anti-car lobby complain that roads divide communities and want to strangle the system in the name of safety (if it saves just ONE life!), especially by slowing down road vehicles, despite them carrying almost all passenger and freight traffic.
The canals are even older than the railways, but I can't remember the last time I had to ford a canal - you never cross a canal at a "level crossing".
And canal traffic is limited to, is it, 4mph?
I can't remember the last time I saw road traffic driving across a runway, or pedestrians having access to one. Oh, that's because it's not allowed!
There are around 10,000 miles of railway and 2,000 miles of motorway if I recal correctly, with the latter being a fraction of the former, and a fraction of what other first world countries have, pro rata. You don't get level crossings on motorways.
There might be many arguments for the status quo on the railways, but no justifcation given the treatment of motorists.
If motorists have to accept lower speeds in the name of safety, and integration with pedestrians in the name of united communities then there is NO reason why the railroads should NOT have all their fences removed and trains be forced to run at speeds that allow them to stop in time should a hazard appear.
Alternatively, if some people want a safe but fast rail road system - let THEM pay 350% fuel taxes, rail road taxes and the like.
Is that REALLY so unreaonable?
The facts are these:
The anti-car lobby complain that roads divide communities and want to strangle the system in the name of safety (if it saves just ONE life!), especially by slowing down road vehicles, despite them carrying almost all passenger and freight traffic.
The canals are even older than the railways, but I can't remember the last time I had to ford a canal - you never cross a canal at a "level crossing".
And canal traffic is limited to, is it, 4mph?
I can't remember the last time I saw road traffic driving across a runway, or pedestrians having access to one. Oh, that's because it's not allowed!
There are around 10,000 miles of railway and 2,000 miles of motorway if I recal correctly, with the latter being a fraction of the former, and a fraction of what other first world countries have, pro rata. You don't get level crossings on motorways.
There might be many arguments for the status quo on the railways, but no justifcation given the treatment of motorists.
If motorists have to accept lower speeds in the name of safety, and integration with pedestrians in the name of united communities then there is NO reason why the railroads should NOT have all their fences removed and trains be forced to run at speeds that allow them to stop in time should a hazard appear.
Alternatively, if some people want a safe but fast rail road system - let THEM pay 350% fuel taxes, rail road taxes and the like.
Is that REALLY so unreaonable?
philthy said:
Probably a bit simple this............why not build a bridge over the railway where there are now level crossings?. I know, the cost. Why not put safety barriers where they will prevent this sort of thing?......oh again, it's down to cost.
I know what you're saying iolaire, but calm down mate, you'll blow a gasket.
Phil
Some of you guys are coming across here like Micheal Winner in the insurance ad, "Calm down dear, it's only a commercial!"
Thank you for your concern, but I'm perfectly OK and as calm as I need to be to maintain coherence.
There are some matters that have to be addressed with aggressive emotion to force people to sit up, take notice and think.
All I ask is that they don't resort to personal, insulting attacks like last night's disgraceful fiasco.
Before I explain where I'm coming from with this, I need to confirm something, something that appears to be so utterly unbelievable that I really and truly hope I have got it wrong.
I think we can all agree that our resident expert on here when it comes to railways is Pigeon, so perhaps he would clear up the point I am about to raise, because I consider it vital.
There was a report this morning on the news that this train was running in reverse; now just to clarify this, as far as I could tell from the visual images this morning, the train was of the type that has a large diesel electric locomotive pulling several unpowered carriages, as opposed to some trains that have electric power on most, if not all carriages.
The latter type of train is therefore double ended and can be run in either direction because there is a drivers compartment at both ends.
To run the former type in reverse though means the driver is sitting at the rear of the train and driving blind, at over 100 mph: someone please tell me this is not true.
The horrible feeling I have creeping up my spine that tells me it is most likely true, comes from the image of the locomotive in the news report that shows it to be virtually undamaged at the front, it didn't hit anything.
When you look at the carnage in the daylight this morning, in the words of the Chief Constable on the site, it is literally a miracle that more people did not lose their lives.
If you're on just now Pigeon, let us know what you think.
IOLAIRE,
Not wishing to steal Pigeons thunder, but I think the photograph you saw was of the rear of the train - showing an undamaged cab. The driver was up the front end which collided with the car. 'Running in reverse' refers to whether the power unit at the front was driving the train or it was being pushed by the power unit at the rear. Normally the HST has both under power, provided one end hasn't failed.
Not even Network Rail would countenance driving something that big and heavy blind. By their nature trains cannot stop in the distance they can see to be clear, so it really needs a driver up front to judge when they should start slowing from their local knowledge of the route. (There have been a few stories in the press when drivers have been asked to drive an unfamiliar route and gotten into all sorts of trouble)
As for the rest of your posts on this subject - I'm actually in agreement. The only way to stop incursions onto the railway line (which are thankfully rare but can cause the loss of life we've seen here and at Great Heck) is to completely separate road from rail with suitable barriers and removal of all level crossings. However, I'm also a pragmatist and know that the cost/life saved is so immense that it would be seen as a monumental waste of money the government wouldn't spend.
Not wishing to steal Pigeons thunder, but I think the photograph you saw was of the rear of the train - showing an undamaged cab. The driver was up the front end which collided with the car. 'Running in reverse' refers to whether the power unit at the front was driving the train or it was being pushed by the power unit at the rear. Normally the HST has both under power, provided one end hasn't failed.
Not even Network Rail would countenance driving something that big and heavy blind. By their nature trains cannot stop in the distance they can see to be clear, so it really needs a driver up front to judge when they should start slowing from their local knowledge of the route. (There have been a few stories in the press when drivers have been asked to drive an unfamiliar route and gotten into all sorts of trouble)
As for the rest of your posts on this subject - I'm actually in agreement. The only way to stop incursions onto the railway line (which are thankfully rare but can cause the loss of life we've seen here and at Great Heck) is to completely separate road from rail with suitable barriers and removal of all level crossings. However, I'm also a pragmatist and know that the cost/life saved is so immense that it would be seen as a monumental waste of money the government wouldn't spend.
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